After U-turnaround, South bolts to playoffs

by joe e. cervi

Published: November 2, 2013;Last modified: November 2, 2013 11:46PM

Ryan Goddard woke up this morning with a 9-1 record, a championship football team and a smile on his face.

That’s far cry from one year ago today, when the head football coach at South High School woke up after the season that smiles forgot. They finished with a 1-9 record and his future was as muddy as Fountain Creek.

“It’s been a wild ride,” said the 30-year-old who just completed his fourth regular season with the Colts.

“The easiest thing I could’ve done would’ve been to walk away,” Goddard. “I’m not one who takes or looks for the easy way out. And I wasn’t going to leave the program worse off than the way I found it. That’s not me.”

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Goddard heard the whispers. And those a bit more audible. He was 26 when he was named head coach. And many questioned his qualifications. He had never been a head coach and his professional resume listed seven years as an assistant at the same school from which he graduated.

Goddard inherited a program so good that expectations are annually unreasonable.

Here’s the keys to the Jaguar kid — just don’t wreck it.

The crash came in time-lapse … 5-6 … 2-8 … 1-9.

South dressed just 27 players for its final game last season.

“A lot of things happened last year, but we didn’t use a single one of them as an excuse,” he said. “We just had to get better.”

The topic of South football’s downfall was popular. Goddard even learned from an acquaintance that he was either going to get fired or be forced to resign.

“I heard that at a wedding reception,” he said. “I laughed. But, hey, maybe they knew something I didn’t.”

Or maybe it was Pueblo being Pueblo.

The rumors of Goddard’s demise, and that of South football, were, of course, premature.

“I have way too much fight in me to walk away or get pushed aside,” he said.

In some of the darkest moments of a season lost, Goddard never lost faith.

“Even when we were losing, our players still played hard. Our coaches always believed in what we were doing and coached their butts off,” he said. “That, to me, was the hardest part. Seeing how much everyone put into it and not seeing those efforts pay off.”

That resolve, that fight, that determination has rubbed off on the Colts. They won the Foothills League and beat up on Pueblo West and Centennial.

Oh, yeah. They also won back the Cannon after losing it to East last year.

The Colts have won more games this season than they did in Goddard’s first three seasons combined (eight).

South will find out later today which team it draws in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs.

Goddard’s worst-to-first formula is no secret: Hard work.

“You either be humble or get humbled,” he said. “Did I ever forget the times we were getting our teeth kicked in last year or the year before that? No, we used them as fuel so that we didn’t let that happen again.”

Several players were tired of getting pushed around — and they did something about it.

“We always preach brotherhood, but now it was time to see if they were just words or if they meant something,” Goddard said.

Sadly, but truly, we live in a place where we are defined by where we went to school. Not college, mind you, rather high school.

Pledging allegiance in Pueblo isn’t to the Red, White and Blue, but to the Red & White or Blue & White — or whatever other color was emblazoned on your soul at an impressionable age.

Pueblo loves a winner, but only if it comes from the right side of the tracks or a certain part of town.

Provincial thinking?

Absolutely.

But it’s accurate.

The Colts went from 1-9 to 9-1 in a single season. Everyone should applaud that feat — even if it’s in Black & White.